After spending 20 years worrying about fire and injury and possible disasters to the public and his firefighters, Ron Pendleton will step down as the Chief of the Bristol Fire Department Jan. 5.
“I enjoyed it, I really did, but I have no second thoughts about retirement,” he said.
Although “the boss” is leaving the chief’s job, he will still hang around the department to help out his hometown, which now has three modern fire stations, new equipment, and a company of trained volunteers.
“I will go over and help, if they ask me,” Pendleton said. “If they don’t I won’t. I have a year left on my emergency medical technician’s license. Maybe I will fill in, run the pump, or help out with traffic, but I will not try to run that place. No more.”
According to Chad Hanna, chairman of the Bristol Board of Selectmen, said the longtime fire chief will be missed. “He is a good guy, runs a tight ship and we hate to see him go.”
Some town officials were surprised when Pendleton convinced the usually frugal voters at the town meeting to authorize purchase of two new fire trucks at a cost of $576,000.
Hanna explained. “People understand the need. They squeezed a lot of good years out of the old trucks (one was 36 years, the other 32).
“These people are volunteers and you don’t want to send them out with poor equipment,” said Hanna.
As Pendleton explained his decision to retire last week, his wife of 47 years, Geraldine (Jeri) chimed in with a smile and a knowing nod.
“She knows what I am going to say. I guess she ought to, we have been together since the sixth grade,” he said.
Ron, 70, grew up in Bristol Mills where his father, Robert Pendleton, was one of a group of men who founded the Samoset Fire Co. in 1944 following a tragic house fire in New Harbor, in which a family of three perished.
The department’s first vehicle was a 1944 Ford fire truck.
When he turned 15, as a freshman at the former Bristol High School, Ron joined his dad on the department.
After high school, Pendleton joined the Army, spending time in Korea, then came home and worked as a bank teller. He worked at that job for five years before the then fire chief, Ken Sawyer, asked him to join him in the plumbing and heating business.
“He said you handle money every day, why not make some for yourself,” Pendleton said.
It was an easy decision. Today, Pendleton Plumbing and Heating has more than 1000 customers and is run by Pendleton’s sons, Jared and Brad, both firefighters. A third son, Scott, is a sea captain in charge of a 1000-foot long container ship.
When Chief Sawyer stepped down after 39 years as chief, Pendleton took over. He also married the chief’s daughter.
The fire department was not his only stint in community service. He coached the Bristol High School basketball team to the edge of a state championship in 1964-65, he coached little league, and was the scoutmaster.
Chief Sawyer’s daughter, Jeri was introduced to the fire department before she even met Ron.
“At that time, a fire call would come into the chief’s house. My mother would send me running down to the fire house and I would blow the whistle,” she said.
The number of blasts on the fire whistle told the firefighters the general location of the incident.
“I would blow the whistle once for New Harbor, Two for Pemaquid, three for Round Pond, four for Bristol Mills and five for out of town,” she said.
“Then I would go to the chalkboard in front of the station and write down the address of the fire.
“Firefighters would drive past the firehouse and read the address on the board, and go to the scene,” she said. “I was six or seven when I started.”
Whistles and chalkboards are just memories for the Pendletons and other Bristol firefighters, as sophisticated turnout gear, air packs and infrared cameras have replaced tattered black rubber coats and leaky boots.
More importantly, portable radios, uniform training practices, and strict standards have helped willing, but untrained rural volunteers, raise their skills to the level of many big city professional departments.
State and federal requirements, supported by professional emergency management specialists, like Lincoln County’s Tim Pellerin, have worked to turn isolated, rural volunteer fire departments, into teams.
For Pendleton, the proof of the pudding was the devastating 2008 fire at East Boothbay’s Washburn & Doughty shipyard.
Dozens of departments pitched in to help the Boothbay Department battle that blaze. While the shipyard was destroyed, (it is now rebuilt and back in business), hard work by neighboring departments helped limit the damage to nearby homes.
“That was the test,” said Pendleton. “We had trained together and worked on similar equipment. When we came on the scene, we knew each other and we pitched in. It didn’t matter if you were from Boothbay or Bristol, we were firefighters working together.”
For the longtime chief, a plus for modern fire departments is the addition of women as firefighters and rescue workers.
Jeri got her EMT license in 1982 and joined the department. She now serves as Chief of the department’s emergency services department.
The Pendletons now have sons, grandsons and granddaughters on the Bristol department rolls.
While Bristol has much in common with city and other rural departments, their location poses a special challenge.
“One of my biggest fears is when I get a call that someone has fallen into the waves at Pemaquid Point,” said Pendleton.
The unique ledges of Pemaquid Point, that attract so many tourists to peer at the pounding surf, also tempt some to tiptoe too close to the water. Some have fallen in the surf. Some have lost their lives as the waves slammed them into the rocks.
“It is always a hard decision. Do I send someone into the waves in a survival suit to try to pull them out? Do I risk a firefighter’s life? It is always a balancing act,” he said.
For the record, Pendleton advises folks who stumble into the raging surf at Pemaquid Point to try to swim out to sea and hang on to a lobster pot buoy and wait for a boat.
“I know your instinct is to try to get to shore, but that is trouble. That is when you can get bashed into the rocks,” he said.
Asked for his proudest memory of the department, Pendleton laughs and says he now has running water, bathrooms and heat in the three department stations at New Harbor, Round Pond and Bristol Mills.
The three stations also have up to date equipment stashed on new vehicles.
Despite devoting a lifetime to building the Bristol Fire Dept., Pendleton said the decision to step down now was not a hard one.
“We have stayed in town every weekend for years to cover the calls. Now it is up to someone else,” he said. “I have a lot of projects around here to do on the house, and the grass takes me a day to cut, and we finally went to Boothbay’s Botanical Gardens last summer, it is an amazing place. Jeri now has some new ideas for the yard.”
Then there is the golf course, and his boat, and the family plumbing business where he says he now “just helps out.”
“They say, Dad, you aren’t doing anything now, would you mind going over to…”
After January, for the first time in years, Ron and Jeri Pendleton will not spend their lives worrying about others. It is time to focus on the next chapter of their lives, a life together, he brags, that began in the sixth grade.
For the first time in their lives, the fire department will no longer rate first place on the family schedule.
“After 55 years on the job and 20 years as chief, I will preside over the annual meeting of the fire company and ask (the assembled firefighters) for nominations for chief.
“When they elect a chief, I will step down,” he said.
Jeri, who will stay active, just smiled.
